


Budapest, this time of year

by Christina786



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Budapest, F/M, Songfic, What Happened in Budapest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:57:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7380889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christina786/pseuds/Christina786
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Happened in Budapest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're a Labrador, Natasha Romanov

“Shit!” Clint cursed as he slammed the heavy metal door shut behind them. He looked at Natasha, who had been shot in the right thigh. She looked up at him.  
“It’s just a flesh wound, Barton, calm down.” She said calmly, but he could see in her eyes that it still hurt. Of course it would hurt. She had been shot in the thigh with a .45 caliber.  
“I was kind of referring to our overall situation. In case you haven’t noticed, not only did our disguise go up in smoke, because one of the guys apparently recognised you, but we’re also trapped inside this building with no way to communicate with the outside world, because my f**ing phone died. So, no extraction. We are fucked, Nat!”  
She had a small smile playing in the corner of her mouth. “No, we’re not. We’re Black Widow and Hawkeye. We will figure something out.”  
“We can’t run, we can’t really climb, there is no way out of here but the front door.”  
“How do you know that? We’ve only been here for a few seconds.”  
“And it’s far too long since my last cup of coffee!”  
She smiled a tired, but genuine smile. He loved that smile. It was one of the few things about her which were completely honest. And one of the warmest gestures, too.  
They had been sent to Budapest to destroy a couple of documents revealing the identity of several CIA and SHIELD agents currently undercover in Russia and Hungary. It was of the utmost importance that their identity not be revealed, because they were following leads that some former parts of Hydra had gone undercover and kept on pursuing experiments the Red Skull had once considered important. But not long after their arrival, Nat couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had informed the Hungarians of their arrival and intentions. Actually, the feeling had been based on the fact that, as soon as they’d left the airport, someone tried to kill them with an autobomb underneath their rental car. They had only been lucky enough to escape because Nat had been kept up in passport control and the guy programming the timer on the bomb hadn’t thought about that. But when they got to their hotel, bullets started flying, as they left the taxi. Nat had ducked instantly when she’d heard the first bullet being shot and dragged half-deaf Clint down with her. They had seen an old factory hall just across the street and figured that fewer civilians might get involved if they could just make it over there. They ducked behind cars, ran as fast as they could, but when Clint had found the door of the building locked, they had been in place a second too long before Nat had been able to bomb away the doorlock. Just long enough for her to get shot in the thigh.  
And here they were. He looked up at Nat.  
“They did not try to kill you.” He said.  
She gave a curt nod. Her lips were tightly pressed together. “Which means they want me alive, which in turn means they know who I am.”  
“Which probably means, you managed to piss them off, so they’re coming for you. Help me get this door somewhat shut?”  
She looked at him, incredulously. “And how would I do that?”  
“I don’t know, you have all these Widow-gadgets. Don’t you have some kind of superglue? Spiderweb? You know, you are called the Black Widow. It would make sense.”  
“I don’t…Well, actually I do have something like that. But it won’t keep them out forever.”  
“Doesn’t have to, we just need to buy a little time to fix you up and figure out how to charm our way out of here.”  
Nat laughed. “Oh, and will you be the one who’s doing the charming or I?” she shot back.  
“Obviously me, as they don’t seem to like you very much.”  
She punched him on the shoulder and he made a pretty unmanly sound. “HEY! You may be tiny, but it still hurts, when you punch me.”  
“Was supposed to hurt”, she sprayed a weird smelling substance that looked a lot like spray bandage onto the door, “Let’s go find a safe vantage point, bird boy.” He took her arm and slung it around his shoulder, helping her limp away from the door while he scanned their surroundings. They could easily get on the second floor. From the ballustrade up there, he could take out the men should they file in through the door. He looked for a stairway and found one to their far right, steering Natasha toward it.  
They were just turning away from the door, as the pressure wave of an explosion rolled over them and smashed them into the floor, rendering them unconscious. 

*

“We’re trapped in some kind of subterreanean dungeon.” He heard Nat say as he tried to open his eyes.  
“Why are you shouting?” he asked, touching his hearing aid. Full volume. Yeah, okay, his fault.  
He smiled slightly until he saw Natasha and it all came back to him. Trapped in a dungeon. Underneath the surface. That was not good. No, that was bad. Natasha’s face was bruised where it had hit the floor, there were a few cuts and scratches across her cheeks. He probably looked just like her. At least it felt like he did. He touched his face and realised what a bad idea that was, when he touched a severe bruise.  
“This doesn’t feel good.” He remarked.  
Nat looked at him. “We need to get out of here. Get in contact with SHIELD. We need to…”  
Clint shook his head. “First we need to assess our situation. Don’t get ahead of yourself. I thought you were a pro at this.”  
“Not when I have a partner. Not when there is full-on confrontation. I’m a spy, Barton, yes, I’m trained in Combat, but I’m not trained for facing a small army and taking them out. That’d be a mercenary. I gather intel and leave no traces, if possible.”  
“Time you learnt how to deal with confrontation. You can put up a fight. I’ve seen it. And you’re not a bad shot either. We can do this.”  
“We don’t have weapons. We don’t know where exactly we are. We are prisoners and they took our equipment. And you mobile is dead, because you never charge it.” She said exasperatedly and tried to rattle on the iron bars which enclosed them into a small cell surrounded by rough rock on the other three sides. It had probably been dug into the stone underneath some old as f*** castle or mansion.  
Clint glanced up at her. His face went soft, he could feel it. His heart went out to the seemingly young woman, who had to be in her fifties, if everything he’d heard about her had been the truth. He had never dared ask, because Nat could be scary, and you don’t ask women how old they are.  
“Come on, Nat. Lie down with me. We can’t do anything for now, come here.”  
She cocked an eyebrow. Then she took a step. He could see her thigh was still bothering her, but not as bad as he would have expected. Then she lay down beside him on the cold floor, put her hand in the middle of his chest and her head on is shoulder. Her head turned up after what could be seconds or minutes. He could feel her breath on his neck. Looked down into her eyes and whatever else he felt right then and there was utterly unimportant. He had to keep her safe. He had personally sworn to her that nothing bad was going to happen to her if she joined SHIELD and here she was. In a dungeon. With him.  
“Clint”, she asked, “What can we even do?”  
He tried to smile. “Keep each other warm and do that thing you’re so good at. You know? Gathering intel? Someone is bound to come down here. They won’t let us rot here forever.”

*

Turns out, he was wrong. After many heartbeats against his chest, he had to admit that maybe nobody was coming down here after all. Maybe they’d been left here to die. Cause no scene, just die.  
He turned to Nat. “I’m so sorry if this is how we are going to die. I promised you, you’d be safe with me and…”  
She smiled at him. Again, that tired little smile. Too tired to keep up a façade. “Clint, there are worse ways to go.” And she gave him a peck on the cheek. “And besides, we’ve only been here two hours.”  
“Really? Felt like two days. There’s no daylight, so that’s confusing.” He said in return, “How do you know?”  
“I got a watch. It’s practical. Helps you be on time.” She grinned impishly.  
“Nobody wants me to be on time when that means I’m undercaffeinated.”

*

It took another two hours for someone to come down and bring them something to drink. The moment they heard a key scrape against a lock and then the movement of what had to be a heavy door, they scuttled apart, acting like they were bored.  
“Water. Drink.” A man with a leathery face told them, when he held two water bottles through the bars.  
Nat grabbed for the bottles, but the man pulled them back. “One moment. What are Black Widow and the Hawkeye doing in Budapest? Who sent you.”  
“Would you believe us if we told you, we were on vacation? We heard Budapest was beautiful this time of year?” Natasha asked.  
“No.” the man said seriously.  
“Who are you working for?” Clint asked.  
“I am not at liberty to tell.” The man said.  
“Seems like we are not at liberty to tell either.” Clint said with a disappointed shake of his head.  
“We may want to talk, but we will only talk to your boss. We don’t want the information to go through more hands than necessary.” Natasha said.  
“My boss is very busy man. You have to talk to me.”  
Natasha shook her head and had that small, dangerous smile playing around the right corner of her mouth. Clint did not like that smile usually, because normally it meant trouble for him. Today, he was in love with it, because it meant she had a plan and was spinning her web. “See, it doesn’t work this way. We are willing to die for our mission. We are not going to talk to some random accomplice if we don’t even know who he is working for.”  
“Then you will be fine without drink, no?” the man said, but even Clint could hear the hesitation in his words.  
“Is it coffee?” he asked.  
The guy looked at him, confused. “What?”  
“I asked, if you had coffee.”  
“No, just water. We don’t serve prisoners coffee. We don’t even have coffee machine. No electricity, no coffee.” The poor man was seriously confused.  
Clint leaned back against the rough rock. “Nah, then I don’t want anything to drink anyway.”  
The guy was looking more and more incredulous. This was obviously not how he had expected them to act. “Look, I will talk to my boss. Maybe he will talk to you.” He left the water bottles and turned around. Again the door, again the key in the door. Then silence.  
Until Nat burst into laughter. “Coffee? Really? Is that how prisoners act these days?”  
Clint shrugged and tried to keep a straight face. “I wouldn’t know, haven’t been a captive in months. Maybe even years. I just really wanted coffee.”  
“You’re so dumb, Barton. But sometimes you’re a genius. We now know that there is no electricity in this place, which explains the torches, I guess. Oh, and he has no idea how to do this thing. So, probably no big organisation. I’d guess his boss is just someone’s little helper as well. Divide and conquer. If no one knows more than necessary, no one can talk.”  
“No electricity also means no cameras. So, if we manage to break out, they won’t know until they either bump into us or see we’re missing.”  
“Not so eager, Barton. Let’s gather a little intel while we’re here. See who we are dealing with and what they have in store for us. Maybe they will lead us to our mission.”

*

  
Evening came and night probably fell. They could not see in their dungeon, but some of the torches began to burn low and flicker out, adding to the night time effect. Natasha looked over at him.  
“You know that if we wanted to, we could escape from this cell pretty easily?” she asked.  
He gave a nod. “I do. At least I assumed. But you wanted to gather intel.”  
“I see, you get me, Barton.”  
“I don’t. I just listen when people tell me things. People never believe I do, because I seem confused most of the time. But I do listen.”  
“You know, I never thanked you, for not killing me, you know?” Nat didn’t look at him.  
“Yeah, but I figured you saving my ass two or three times made us even.” He scratched his head, this didn’t feel too bad. But he wasn’t comfortable either.  
“Yeah. I’m bad at saying thank you. I don’t like to owe people. I’m not a people person…”  
“You don’t say?!” He asked in mock surprise.  
“Hey!” she chuckled, “I’m good at reading people, pleasing people, giving them what they want, knowing what they expect from me. But you… you never expected anything of me. You just… you just knew I’d be good.”  
“You struck me as someone wanting to do right by the world. How could I kill someone who just did what she thought to be right? It wasn’t you who spun the web, you just crawled across and hauled in the prey.”  
“What a nice little analogie.” Despite the sarcasm in her voice she still smiled genuinely.  
“It’s the same thing with the dogs I take in, you know? With some dogs, you can see that they are not actually vicious, they just act according to their situation and surroundings. Others are just rotten to the core and you can’t do much for them. But most dogs are nice. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He smiled at her, almost proud of that comparison.  
“And I am one of those dogs who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time?” she laughed.  
“You are a labrador deep down. You are loyal, you are good natured, and you’re patient.”  
Now Nat burst into laughter. “You can’t be serious!”  
“Why would I not be?” Clint still smiled.  
“Why do you think of me as a labrador?”  
“Labs can be fierce, too, don’t get me wrong. They can be aggressive. They’d do anything for their pack. Which is what you do. You always have Fury’s back. You don’t let anything happen to Hill. You even get along with Coulson. But Lord have mercy on those who would want to hurt any one of them.”  
She cocked an eyebrow. “How do you know?”  
“I always check in with my strays. See how they’re doing.”  
“So I’m one of your strays, is that what you are saying?”  
“In a way. I wanted to help you. So, I am responsible for you being okay.”  
Nat crawled over to him, whincing slightly when she accidentally put some weight on her thigh. Then she burrowed into his side.  
“’s cold here.” She said, looking up into his face. He looked at the wall opposite.  
“Nat, listen, I am really sorry for getting you into this mess and…”  
She tugged at his sleeve and made him look down to her. “Don’t be, Clint. There are only a few places I’d rather be right now.”  
“Starbucks one of them?”  
She laughed again. “You are such a goofball. Can’t you be serious for a moment?”  
He smiled down into her face. “Life’s too short for that, especially when you’re a SHIELD Agent and running with that kinda crowd.”  
Nat gave a little smile he couldn’t quite decipher. Then she leaned up and gave him a soft peck on the lips. “Thank you for believing in me, Clint Barton. Thank you, for thinking of me as a labrador rather than a black widow.”  
He had turned beet red by now and was relieved that she probably couldn’t see in the little light left. “Anytime…” he muttered.  
Nat grinned at him.  
“What?” he asked.  
“I have never seen you this red.”  
A groan left him before he tugged her closer and closed his arms around her smaller body, careful not to hurt her.  
“We should try to get some sleep, if we want to take on foreign criminals tomorrow.” 


	2. Weaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Natasha suffering from an infected wound, Clint is pretty much left to his own devices

Nat would not be taking on any foreign criminals today, at all. Clint didn’t know much, be he was sure about that, as he woke up to her violently shaking body. Normally it took him about two cups of coffee and half an hour to figure out where he was and how he got here, but turns out, adrenalin did the same job in a few nanoseconds. The whole weight and gravity of their situation came tumbling down onto him as soon as he opened his eyes and felt Natasha’s sweat drenched body in his arms. He tried to wake her, but to no avail. She was mumbling incoherent sentences and seemed to be caught up in a fever dream. And sure as hell, when he looked at her leg, it was deep red and infected. He sighed. This did not look good. He knew she had had a plan to get to know who had been the one to order their capture and then beat the crap out of the bad guys until she had all the intel she needed, but she was out cold…or rather out hot right now and he wasn’t half as good at playing the easy, helpless victim as she was that he could pull off her tactics. No one did Nat like Nat could. That’s why she was the Black Widow. But for now, he needed to come up with a plan, otherwise Nat wouldn’t live to see the documents they had been sent here to chase. He swallowed against the lump in her throat. He had not saved her back then just to lose her like that. Natalia Romanova would not die of an infected gunshot wound, that was for sure.

*

The guy with the leathery face came back a couple of hours later, according to Nat’s watch it was nine in the morning. She had been in and out of sleep for the last hour, long enough to explain to her what was going to happen. He explained that he was sorry about her beloved intel, but she didn’t care. That was when he knew that things were getting serious. She did not argue, she just gave a little nod and smiled a small little smile.  
“You know that underneath all those band-aids you’re actually a pretty good looking guy?” she asked.  
“You’re running a fever, Nat. You’d never say that if you weren’t.”  
“Doesn’t mean, I don’t mean it.” She winked. That woman; here she was, feverish and captured and she winked at him. He had to smile.  
“Save your energy, you’ll need it soon enough.” Then he’d proceeded to almost force feed her most of the water they had left and watched her fall back to sleep. Now he looked up into the face of their prison guard. He held Nat’s head in his lap and felt tears sting in his eyes.  
“Help us, please! You need to help us, she needs a doctor, her gunshot wound got infected and she’s running a fever, we gotta get her to a doctor!” He hated his whiny tone of voice. But the guy hesitated again.  
“My boss. He want to speak to you. Told me to get you to him. You can ask him for doctor.”  
He looked at Clint almost stonefaced. Clint could see little cracks in his armour.  
“Please, can’t you talk to him? I will tell anything, if you only save her life. She means a lot to me, you understand?” He felt the tears running down his face by now and internally applauded himself for his great performance. Then he felt Nat snort. She hid it with a little sigh and restless movement.  
He could see the man being worried. He took up his phone and walked out the door. After a few moments, he was back.  
“There will be doctor for your lady friend. But you will have to talk.”  
“First the doctor, then the talk.” Clint said forcefully. He felt Nat peer up at him. He did not know how aware she was of the situation. He couldn’t know.  
The guy nodded. Clint almost felt sorry for him, because he had been kind of nice to them, considering the circumstances of their encounter. “Yes. But now you get away from the lady and turn around. Stand with your face to the wall and let me put handcuffs on you.”  
Clint did as he was told and was handcuffed. Then their guard looked down at Natasha.  
“How do we get her to doctor?” He asked Clint, a little helpless.  
Clint looked down at her, then nudged her with his boot, as carefully as he could. He knew, he’d still probably get shit from her because of that.  
“Nat? Are you awake? Can you sit up?”  
She mumbled something and the guard bowed down to her and shook her shoulder. She woke with a start and almost punched their guard, but she was still too weak to do any harm and the guy just caught her fist mid-air.  
“Ma’am, we need to go. My boss want to talk to you.” He helped her sit up and after a few minutes, she was on her feet. She swayed, but he steadied her, helping her taking one step after the next.  


*

As it turned out, they had been held in the former wine cellar of some estate, and now the guard was leading them through a few rooms and hallways. Clint looked out of the windows they passed and he knew they were quite a ride from the city center. He also spotted a few cars parked along the driveway of the estate. Then they reached a conference or office room where their guard knocked at the door frame, because the door was open. A small tanned guy in his 40’s sat behind the desk and looked at them.  
“Hawkeye and Black Widow…what a pity to see you in this state. But then again, it makes it easier to talk some sense into you. My…businesspartner meant to kill you, but I believe that we don’t need to go that far. Just give me the encryption codes and you are good to go.” His accent was American, but he had clearly been making himself a home back here in Budapest.  
Clint shook his head. “I won’t do anything before you get her a doctor and he helps her. I won’t have her die, because I just gave you what you needed.”  
“You’d rather have her die, because you didn’t give me what I want, Mr. Hawk? Or is it Mr. Eye? Captain Hawkeye?”  
“Usually ’Hey you’ works just fine. And yes, because I know that’s what she’d want. Also, I really don’t like helping out the bad guys without getting anything in return.”  
“But we’re not the bad guys here, Mr- Hey you. We’re…”  
Clint interrupted him. “Sorry, but don’t give me that philosophical crap about how being bad depends on the point of view, how you are actually fighting for a noble cause. You are working against us, thus you are one of the baddies. And yes, it is that easy to me. You shot my friend, you are the bad guys.”  
“I see, you have it all figured out. Is there anything else you’d want?” he asked with a hint of sarcasm to his voice.  
Clint decided the only way to answer sarcasm was blunt disregard. “A cup of coffee would be nice.”  
The guy looked at him like he had never seen such insolence. On the other hand, he made a gesture to one of his security guys. “Go, get a doctor. And a cup of coffee for him.”  
Clint looked around proudly for someone to point out to how good he was at this negotiation thing, but noticed that there was no one in the room except for him, Nat, their friendly villain of the week and his two remaining body guards. As far as he could see, they were heavily armed; each one carried a gun in their belt, one in a holster underneath their armpit, a knife in the left boot, a knife in their belt. If Nat were awake, they could easily get out of here, but with their situation being as it was, he considered Nat’s approach of gathering more intel first.  
“So, while we’re waiting for a doctor, what exactly is it that you want from us, Mr. …?” he asked.  
“Durand, Daniel Durand. And it’s easy enough, I just need the encryption code for the documents my boss has acquired from one of our double agents.”  
“And your boss would be?”  
“Oh, that’s none of your concerns, you just need to help us with the encryption.”  
“I see. In that case you have to talk to Miss Widow over there, because they never entrust me with secrets. Apparently, I have a habit of blurting them out in the weirdest of moments.” He started pacing around the room and touched a sword that was mounted to the wall. “Also, I am highly susceptible to blackmail.” He jumped back, when the sword he had just admired came crashing to the ground. “Whoa, you should get that mounted properly, somebody might get hurt!”  
He saw Daniel Durand facepalm out of the corner of his eye and read his lips noiselessly forming the words ‘idiot’. He smiled to himself and tripped over the corner of the old carpet in front of the desk, when he turned around. He made a show off it, grabbing a hold of one of the security guys’ belt to help himself get up. The guy shoved him away with an irritated glare.  
“Can you imagine? I am one of their best agents, and they don’t even trust me to not tell the bad guys our secrets.” Too much? Nah, he had to make sure.  
“No, really, I can’t see why they wouldn’t trust you. But maybe you want to help us, Mr. Alexander is a good man who trusts his employees 100%. He would probably reward you generously for every bit of information you could give him.”  
Clint swayed his head from side to side, deliberatingly. “Hmm, maybe. But I have to save her first. They’d get suspicious if she didn’t come back.”  
Daniel Duran nodded. “I see, yes.”


	3. Struggling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to escape

For all that he’d heard about Eastern European health care – mostly from Nat – he was surprised how fast and effectively their doctor worked on Natalia while he was sipping on his surprisingly bad coffee. But an infected wound was an infected wound and treatment would not kick in instantly, so she stayed unconscious even afterward.  
“So, your friend won’t die, ain’t that great?” Daniel Durand said smoothly.  
Clint looked back to him at his desk. He was sitting next to Nat, stroking her hair, her side, her backpocket, shoving his hand in there and releasing its cargo. She didn’t react. Then a short change of position, her hand following the trail of his in her sleep. He smiled.  
“Yeah, now we just have to wait for her to wake up and she can tell you the key for the encryption.” He sighed relieved.  
Daniel Duran nodded at two of his guards who came walking over to him, one grabbing him in the armpits and dragging him up.  
“Hey, careful, that hurts, you know.” He complained and shoved the guard off of him, stumbling backwards into the second guard. The second guard just grabbed his left arm as he grabbed for his belt with his right. Quickly he moved his right hand back to his side. It was almost showtime. He could feel it in his bones.  
“Mr. well, Hey you, let’s stop playing games, shall we? I can’t imagine S.H.I.E.L.D’d send you on a mission like that totally unprepaired and without any way to help us solve the encryption. Not even Hydra sends out their agents without any bargaining chips.”  
Clint snorted. “You see, you’ve watched too many of those old school spy movies, where they give their agents info to barter with. The reason they’d never give me relevant information is exactly to not help you solve the thing. You do realise that a scenario like this is the reason why they don’t tell me stuff? Also, what use would the key be for you if you don’t even have the documents.”  
“Who says I don’t have them?” He looked over to the wall. Oh, pride could make a man admit to things he meant to keep secret.  
“As you said, you are working for your boss, not more. And well, in a mansion like this, where would you even hide them properly? In a clichée safe behind a mounted sword in the wall?”  
He saw Duran’s eyes go wide, but at the same time heard the two shots from behind him already. Nat sat up and got up, watching the door. “Come on, get it, and let’s get out of here, Clint.”  
“You were too fast, I don’t even have the password for the safe yet.” He said as he pulled the whole sword with its halter off the wall and revealed the safe door behind it.  
“But we do have the password. It’s Hydra. Easy as one two three.”  
He typed it in and nothing happened. It would have been too easy. “Try Hail”, Nat said sharply, he punched it in and the door swung open to reveal a thin folder. “Now get your feet going and let’s move, the rest of his security will be here any minute!” Nat shouted at him. He rolled his eyes.  
“Geez, with the commanding tone. I’m coming already, but what are we going to do with that guy?”  
Daniel Durand looked at them. “How nice of you to think of me, Clint.” He then said. This time, Clint looked at him wide eyed, only to see a bullet hit him right between the eyes.  
  
“Shit.” Nat said. “Shit, that one’s on me. Come on!”  
Clint threw one look back over his shoulder as she grabbed him by the hand and started to move. Daniel Durand had been the bad guy, but he hadn’t deserved to die. He had taken care of them. He had called for a doctor for Nat. Clint felt like vomiting. Budapest was definitely not going as he’d planned. They heard footsteps coming towards them and then saw their prison guard, the man with the leathery face. Clint was hoping that he would not try to stop them and he did not. He wordlessly threw himself facefirst on the floor. “Please don’t kill me, I don’t do anything. I don’t do anything.”  
Nat just passed him and they cut the corner. The sound of more feet behind them. A bullet blew past his ear. He felt the draft, didn’t hear the sound. Turned his hearing aids’ volume higher, as he was reminded of them. He could still hear the guy’s pleading, only now it sounded more alarmed. He heard people scream at him in Hungarian. Hurt him plead. He didn’t understand a word, but he understood the fear singing through every single syllable. Then a shot and no more fear. He tried to keep his sickness at bay. As long as they were save and their mission close to completion, everything was fine, wasn’t it? Effectively, Nat cut the next corner, dragged him behind her and from the safety of the corner started shooting at the soldiers at their heels. Clint took a deep breath. Now was not the right time to freak out and feel empathetic with the guys who had held them prisoners. He stooped down and started to shoot at the guys in the hallway as well. Then he looked around them and saw the driveway through the window. He signed Nat that they had to get out there and she gave a curt nod. Then a few shots, then started running again.  
“I’m out of ammo, you got any? Where'd you get the gun, by the way?”  
“Take mine”, and with these words, Clint shoved his gun into her hand and started running, stopping at a stairway down toward the first floor and headed down the stairs. Nat gave a few shots, then followed him. "I am a decent pick pocket. When I tumbled into one of the guards, I just borrowed it. We really need ammunition. Or new guns.” He remarked.  
“There are four guys behind us, they all carry weapons. You think we can put them out?”  
Clint closed his eyes. Gave a nod. Didn’t want to, but knew he needed to.  
  
They hid on either side of the doorway and when the four soldiers came storming through, they closed the door to the stairway and Nat just shot. One. Two. Three. Four. Effective, impersonal, deadly. He would have given anything for his bow. Yes, he still killed people, but it was more of a craft than a mere killing. You need no finesse to kill with a gun, killing with a bow needs precision. But there was no bow. Only guns. Oh, he hated guns. He still picked up two of them. He looked at Nat going through the soldiers’ equipment and pocketing guns, ammos, a knife and a couple of hand grenades. What would they need hand grenades for? He should stop thinking at this point and just go with it. He already felt like a fish out of water, but Nat looked like she was in her own element fighting a private army of who knew how many people, definitely many times more than them. When they got out of the front door, there were two security guards outside. Nat shot them faster than Clint even saw them through his uncooperative brain. More guards from the front gate came running over and Nat coldly but surely disposed of them all. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of helicopter wings and started asking himself what kind of mess he had gotten himself into. He shot at the heli, as did Nat, but then she stopped, and reached to her utility belt. Well, there was the answer to the question why they’d need hand grenades. They made their way to a Skoda Yeti – what the fuck was a Skoda Yeti?!? Had they never heard of a Grand Cherokee? – and he drove through the front gate, over two guards as Nat shot a few good wishes back at the private army. And through the wheels of the parked cars. After a couple of breaths, Clint realised that nobody was following them and took a deep breath.  
  
“Well, that sucked big time.” He sighed.  
Nat looked at him. “Yes. Yes it did. I didn’t mean to kill Durand before, but he knew your name, because I blurted it out. He had to die. He would have used it against us.”  
“He wasn’t that bad. He called for a doctor and got me coffee.”  
“Clint, he would have come looking for you. He would have killed you. I did what I had to do.”  
“And they killed Sergio.”  
“Who is Sergio?” Nat asked, seriously confused.  
“Our guard.”  
“His name was Sergio?” She cocked an eyebrow.  
Clint shrugged. “No, but I named him that.”  
Nat apparently didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. Then she went with pity. “Clint, you can’t name the bad guys. They are not strays to pick up and give names to, they are criminals.”  
Clint shook his head. “Sergio was a good guy. He was no soldier. He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”  
“How can you be so emotional, Clint? I mean, this is your job.”  
“Not like this. I don’t kill like I was born for it. I kill if necessary, but I try to avoid it till the last minute. I hate killing people. Enemies, okay, but people, no. Seriously injure them, yes. But I don’t like killing them. It’s why I don’t use guns. You have to make your arrows count. You can’t just hold out your gun and hope you hit someone somewhere.”  
Nat went silent. They drove for a while, until they reached a safe house. Got in. Nat changed the bandage on her wound. Clint drank some water and felt the queaziness slowly disappear.  
  
After a while Nat came over to him, as he was sitting on the couch. “You okay?” she asked quietly.  
“No, not really. First, I let you do all the dirty work and then I whine about killing people. I was an asshole, sorry.”  
Nat shrugged. “I think you are kind of right. Shooting people is no craft, but it is my business. Shooting people is ugly, but so is most of my life. I don’t feel the way you do, Clint, and sometimes I am jealous of your kindness. I am efficient, but I am not warm like you are. But that is what makes you the person I like. That is why I am still standing in front of you. Yes, I can should through a squad of security guys and bring down a helicopter without blinking once, but you know when to trust people. You know how to trust people, which is why I trust you. And I know that you’d have shot anyone wanting to hurt me, you had my back the entire time. Which is why I like having you there.”  
Clint looked up to her. “Nat. Natalia. You’re not cold. You just compartmentalize better than I do. But don’t beat yourself up about me feeling bad and you being okay. I’m just a sap and I didn’t drink enough coffee today.”  
Nat smiled a small smile. She did not believe him. “I’m not a very social person. I know how to act the part, but I am not. I know how to act like I love someone, I know how to act like I have feelings, but somedays it feels like I don’t have any real feelings.”  
Clint looked down into her face and searched it for the emptiness he could feel in her words. He didn’t need to look too far, it was right there in the tension in her jaw. She looked a little tired and a little sad. Like she asked him to move closer to her, cover her up and cuddling her into his chest. She sighed when he put his arms around her and all he wanted right then and there was for her to kiss him and ask for all the love she deserved, all the love he would freely and willingly give to her if she only asked. But that was the problem. Love was the last thing Natasha Romanoff would ever ask for. But what he saw was insecurity. He just pulled her in tighter until his heart was beating against her chest and he was sure she would notice how he felt and maybe give something away. It took her a while, though. At first, her breathing was shallow, then it got deeper, calmer. And suddenly he felt her lips on his cheek.  
“Thank you, Clint.”  
“For what?”  
“For understanding.” She kissed him on the lips and he needed a moment to realise what was happening. Natasha was neither cold, nor warm. She was her own Russian winter, but a beautiful one at that. He knew that this would probably end with him having his heart broken, but he also knew that Nat trusted him. That she was in love with him as well. Suddenly the landline rang, as their cell phones were somewhere in Budapest, probably with Durand’s people.  
Nat giggled, a light sound Clint instantly fell in love with. “That’s Fury, we should…try and look like serious S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.”  
“You know that he can’t see us, right?”  
“Cameraphone.” She mouthed and picked up the receiver, a screen coming to life and displaying a less furiously looking Fury.  
He heard Fury’s voice on the phone, but couldn’t make out any words. Then Nat nodded. Smiled at him. “Okay, so you will extract us tomorrow. That is great news. See you then.”  
  
She put the receiver down and smiled at Clint. “We got until tomorrow until anyone is going to come for us. You know what that means?” She sat down in his lap and smiled at him. To her surprise Clint looked horrified.  
“What’s with the face?” she asked.  
“We need to see if there is coffee anywhere in this house!”


End file.
